Orly Taitz

Barack Obama’s presidency has been an inspiration to many Americans—especially nut-jobs Ever since the first-black-president-to-be appeared on the national political stage, a cottage industry of conservative conspiracy theorists has churned out bizarro, paranoid, and just plain racist effluvia—some of which has trickled into the political mainstream. Below, we’ve charted some of the Obama-baiters best (i.e., worst) work. (Scroll down for more detailed descriptions of the conspiracy theories in the diagram.)

Venn diagram of Obama conspiracy theories

THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Disclaimer: It should go without saying that none of these are true. Follow links at your own risk.

Steve Brodner

Obama is a secret Muslim: This one began right after he took the stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, with chain emails alleging his “true” religious affiliation. The rumor soon found its way onto the popular conservative online forum Free Republic, and took on a whole new life in the years to come. Related: Obama secretly speaks Arabic, attended a madrassa as a kid in Indonesia, referred to “my Muslim faith” in an interview, and was sworn in on a Koran.

Obama is bringing 100 million Muslims to America: Avi Lipkin and his PR outfit Special Guests claimed to have evidence of a scheme to bring roughly 100 million Muslims from the Middle East into the United States, converting the country into an Islamic nation by the end of Obama’s second term and making it easier to obliterate Israel.

Obama once aided the mujahideen: Harlem pastor and professional race-baiter James David Manning contended that in his younger days, Obama went undercover as a CIA agent to facilitate the transfer of cash and weapons to the Afghan mujahideen in the ’80s, thereby aiding what would become the Taliban.

Obama is in the pocket of the Muslim Brotherhood: Billy Graham’s son Franklin wants you to know that Obama is allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to take over the federal government.

Obama redecorated the Oval Office in Middle Eastern style: Driven by his fierce sense of anti-American interior design, Obama got rid of the red, white, and blue decoration scheme in his White House office.

Obama married a Pakistani guy:World Net Daily correspondent and conspiracymonger extraordinaire Jerome Corsi posted a videoin which he claimed to have “strong” evidence that Obama was once married to his college roommate from Pakistan. The smoking gun: Photos of the chums in which the future president is “sitting about on the [Pakistani roommate’s] lap.” Related:For years Obama wore a gold ring on his left hand. Was it his gay-wedding ring?

Obama’s ring has a Koranic verse on it: The very same ring, which Obama now wears as his (straight) wedding band, is allegedly emblazoned with a key phrase in the Islamic declaration of faith: “There is no god except Allah.” (It’s not.)

Obama was funded by a Saudi prince: Another fairy tale courtesy of Corsi: In late-’70s Chicago, Obama secured political and academic funding from a variety of sketchy Arab sponsors, including a Saudi prince. Which may explain why President Obama bowed to the Saudi king when they met in 2009.

Michelle’s “whitey” tape: During the 2008 campaign, rumors surfaced that a video of Michelle Obama using the word “whitey” would be released to sink her husband’s campaign. It’s never materialized. Related: The time Glenn Beck called Barack Obama a racist.

Obama is the son of Malcolm X: Because, you know, black people. This charmer popped up on Atlas Shrugged, Pamela Geller’s anti-Muslim website. (Geller is also known for obsessing over Shariah turkeys she believes are destroying Thanksgiving.)

Obama is the son of Frank Marshall Davis: The conspiracy film Dreams From My Real Fatherespouses the theory that Davis, a leftist activist, was not only Obama’s ideological mentor but his biological father. Related: Obama got a nose job to make his nose look less like Davis’.

Obama’s mom and dad were communists: That would be his real father, Barack Obama, Sr. And you know that communism is an inherited condition.

Obama’s ghostwriter was Bill Ayers: Conservative commentators claimed they uncovered evidence that ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers was the true author of Obama’s 1995 memoir Dreams from my Father. Beyond their shared radicalism, Obama asked Ayers to help because he had writer’s block.

Obama trained to overthrow the government: In 2008, leading Obama conspiracy theorist Andy Martin declared on Fox News’ Hannity’s America that the then-presidential candidate had trained for “a radical overthrow of the government” during his time as a community organizer in Chicago.

Obama wouldn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance: During the ’08 campaign, Obama was rumored to have refused to say the pledge during a town hall meeting. A photo of the incident was actually taken while the national anthem was being sung.

Obama removed the flag from Air Force One: …and replaced it with his campaign logo.

Obama ordered soldiers to swear allegiance to him: In April 2009, a clearly satirical report detailing how secretary of defense Robert Gates was growing “extremely frustrated” with the White House’s plans to scrub the Constitution from the military oath of loyalty made the rounds on the right-wing blogosphere.

Steve Brodner

Obama secretly gave away American islands to Russia: Texas House candidate Wes Riddle endorsed this theory and noted the relinquishment as grounds for impeachment. However, the seven Arctic islands were actually given away in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.Steve Brodner

Obama caused the recession—in 1995: According to a recent Daily Caller story, Obama’s efforts to force banks to lend to African Americans in the mid-’90s led to the subprime mortgage crisis that killed the economy in 2008.

Obama’s coming for your guns: Extreme gun-rights outfits, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), alleged that the Obama administration is supporting the (nonexistent) United Nations Small Arms Treaty, which would lead to nationwide gun confiscation. Unfounded fears of gun confiscation have multiplied since the Newtown massacre.

Obama’s coming for your gold: This theory was floated by Glenn Beck—and the gold company he shilled for.

Obama is planning FEMA concentration camps: Again with the camps. This theory got a big boost from Glenn Beck (who claims he didn’t mean anything by it). Related: An executive order titled, “National Defense Resources Preparedness,” was issued in the middle of March 2012. Conservative commentators saw it as a martial law power-grab that allowed the president to commandeer farmland, steal everyone’s food, and draft any American into slave labor for a war of aggression against Iran. Also, he has a “secret vault” at Interpol’s headquarters for imprisoning Americans. (Chuck Norris is on the case.)

Obama caused the BP oil spill: Conspiracy-minded radio host Alex Jones promoted the theory that the Deepwater Horizon spill was all part of the administration’s plans of oil nationalization and global government.

Obama was behind the Aurora massacre: In July, Gun Owners of America blasted out a press release claiming that the mass murder at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, was suspiciously timed. “Someone in Washington” was probably behind it, paving the way for Obama-led firearm confiscation and “government genocide.”

Obama personally caused Hurricane Sandy: It wasn’t global warming that made Sandy so intense; it was Barack. Alex Jones’ site reportedthe president engineered the storm using a Pentagon weather modification project. The mayhem caused by the hurricane would afford Obama the opportunity to score points by briskly managing disaster relief a week before the election.

Obama had Andrew Breitbart killed: In March 2012, conservative media impresario Andrew Breitbart died of heart failure. Less than a month prior to his death, he had announced that he had uncovered footage of Obama’s formative years as a radical. So obviously, Obama had him offed. (The tapes were later revealed to contain things like a young Obama hugging a black college professor.) Related: People—like a Rod Blagojevich fundraiser and an Obama impersonator—died between 2008 and 2012. Obama was in office between 2008 and 2012…coincidence?!?!

Steve Brodner

Obama spiked the jobs report: “Jobs truthers” (like former GE CEO Jack Welch and Florida tea party congressman Allen West) accused the Obama administration of cooking the September unemployment numbers to manufacture a rosier picture of the economy and boost the president’s chances of reelection.

Obama faked bin Laden’s death: Since no photographs of Osama bin Laden’s corpse were produced, the Al Qaeda leader must still be out there. Fox News’ Steve Doocy and Andrew Napolitano entertained the idea that Operation Neptune Spear was merely a ploy to revive Obama’s sagging approval ratings. Related: Obama was photoshopped into the iconic killing-OBL White House photo.

Obama’s plan to fake an assassination attempt: A false-flag operation would create urban tumult and give Obama the pretext to declare martial law, thus suspending democracy, postponing the 2012 election, and prolonging his stay in office. The theory was flagged by Tenn. State Rep. Kelly Keisling, among others, after circulating online.

Obama’s planning a third term: The dust from the 2012 election had barely cleared when this one popped up.

Obama the brainwashing hypnotist: As a master of neurolinguistic programming, Obama convinced Americans to vote for him via subliminal messages. Related: Rush Limbaugh pondered if hypnosis was the reason that so many Jewish voters were in the bag for Obama. In October, Georgia GOP lawmakers held a briefing on the president’s secret mind-control plot.

Obama’s teleprompter: Obama’s eloquence is a myth! The 44th president is incapable of speaking in public with his teleprompter.

Obama had a ghostwriter for everything: Jack Cashill over at WND had a hot scoop on how Obama’s love letters to his college girlfriend were ghostwritten.

Obama’s anti-Semitic poetry: However, according to the American Thinker, Obama’s ghostwriters did not write his youthful poem “Underground,” which compares Jews to fig-eating underwater apes and echoes Koranic verse.

Obama’s exiled lover: Obama was supposedly fooling around with an attractive young staffer from his 2004 Senate campaign. Michelle Obama had the temptress packed off to the Caribbean before the ’08 campaign.

Obama’s crack cocaine/gay sex/murder orgy cover-up: In 2008, a small-time conman named Larry Sinclair and his kilt-wearing lawyer held a press conference to tell the world of the future president’s murderous, drug-and-sodomy-fueled crimes.

Obama’s campaigns were funded by drug money: During an October conference call organized to oppose pot legalization, a writer from Lyndon LaRouche’s magazine asked about “reports [that both Obama’s] 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns have been financed in part by laundered drug money.”

Steve Brodner

Obama is the Antichrist:Obviously. Related: If you play his 2008 Democratic nomination acceptance speech backwards, you can hear him instruct listeners to do Satan’s bidding.Steve Brodner

Obama is a lizard overlord: According to codes hidden in Biblical verse, Obama is a reptilian humanoid. This idea has found its way on to some right-wing radio shows, and two Daily Callerreporters recently published a (satirical?) e-book on the topic titled, The Lizard King: The Shocking Inside Account of Obama’s True Intergalactic Ambitions by an Anonymous White House Staffer.

Obama’s adventures on Mars: As a teen, Obama participated in a CIA initiative to teleport to Mars using a top-secret “jump room.” Self-described time travelers William Stillings and Andrew Basiago claim to have met the future POTUS at American space bases on the Red Planet. In early 2012, a spokesman for the National Security Council actually acknowledged these claims, and issued a fairly convincing denial.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, the self-described Birther Queen, Orly Taitz might just be a candidate for the nearest “nut-house”…

Birther queen Orly Taitz has teamed up with a convicted felon who challenged President Barack Obama in the West Virginia Democratic primary to sue Vice President Joe Biden and Congress, in an effort to block the Electoral College vote.

Taitz announced on her website Wednesday evening that she had filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of federal prison inmate Keith Judd, along with two minor presidential candidates and Republican and Libertarian candidates for members of the electoral college. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento on Monday, is an attempt to prevent Congress from counting the Electoral College vote for Obama. Taitz did not announce the suit until Wednesday.

Taitz, an attorney and dentist based in Santa Monica, Calif., used the court papers to reiterate claims that Obama is a citizen of Indonesia and was not born in the United States. She alleges that Obama has used forged documents, including a fake birth certificate, Selective Service card and Social Security number from Connecticut, to run for president. Taitz has filed numerous state and federal court cases nationally seeking to have Obama thrown off the ballot.

Judd received 41-percent of the vote against Obama in May’s West Virginia primary, the most of any candidate against the president. In her court filing, Taitz claims that Judd would be the Democratic Party nominee if Obama was removed from the ballot and could not be voted on by the Electoral College next week. Taitz also filed on behalf of Edward Noonan, who won the American Independent Party presidential primary in California; Thomas Gregory MacLeran, who filed to run as a Republican for president; and Republican James Grinols and Libertarian Robert Odden, who both ran for elector in Minnesota.

Make sure you circle March 1 on your calendars. It might very well turn out to be the most earth-shattering day in U.S. political history.

The results of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “investigation” into whether President Barack Obama is eligible for office are set to be announced.

MCSO spokesman Jeff Sprong tells New Times the findings are set to be released on March 1.

Arpaio’s been mostly hush-hush about the probe, but has promised his “birther” posse will deliver a “shock” with its findings on the conspiracy theory that’s been continuously debunked for several years now.

And it all comes down to twin babies and something you probably last heard of in a 1970s spy movie…microfiche!

Arpaio told New Times in November that the key to investigating whether Obama’s eligible for the office of the president deals with twins born at the same Hawaii hospital as the president (allegedly), just one day earlier.

The sheriff said the twins’ files could be found on microfiche — meaning Obama’s records should be there too.

One of the most brilliant and diabolical plots ever conceived will finally be brought down by a lousy piece of plastic film. Nice. Kudos to Sheriff Arpaio for taking the initiative and hiring a posse (did they have horses?) and finally putting an end to the black Muslim’s illegal reign of terror.

Orly Taitz should be given a medal for sticking in there when the rest of the world mocked her and referred to her as a crazy, racist bitch with a bad wig. Well, I’m thinking that while few people would argue the fact that Orly gives every impression of being both crazy and a racist, March 1 will be her day of redemption. Thank you, Sheriff Arpaio.

It’s my firm believe that the cockroach will not be the only survivor of a nuclear holocaust. It’s possible that Orly Taitz will be among the surviving species as well.

No matter how many times the Court has knocked her down by dismissing her cases before them, she gets back up and continues her frenetic attempts for someone in a judicial capacity to not only hear what she has to say, but to adjudicate her findings.

Orly Taitz took her anti-Obama birther crusade to GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday, only to come up empty-handed. Again.

At a campaign event in Pasadena, Calif., Gingrich took questions after delivering a stump speech blasting , among other things, “President Obama’s war on the Catholic Church” and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban.

After answering concerns about the state of his campaign following a slide in recent polls and primary contests, Taitz came forward, suggesting that the birther issue could provide a “boost ” to his candidacy if he made it a hallmark issue.

“Somebody who wouldn’t be good enough, who wouldn’t be certified to pick tomatoes or clean bathrooms is sitting in the White House,” Taitz told Gingrich, reportedly to a mixed reception from the largely Tea Party audience.

“That’s a project you should pursue,” Gingrich responded. He went on to say that with ongoing economic issues and other mismanagement he saw in the president’s agenda, he had “enough issues to debate Obama about.”

Taitz, a California attorney and dentist, is one of the most outspoken members of the birther movement, whose adherents claim that Obama is ineligible to serve as president because he isn’t actually a U.S. citizen. (In fact, the White House has released the president’s long-form birth certificate, in hopes of quelling the conspiracy theories.) Taitz, who specifically believes that the president has forged his official documents, made something of a stir in Georgia last month when a judge subpoenaed Obama in a case her clients had filed attempting to bar Obama from the state’s primary ballot. Obama’s legal team ignored the judge’s order, however, and the case proceeded without him. It was eventually dismissed by the judge, who determined that Obama was eligible to be on Georgia’s primary ballot in March.

Orly Taitz represented one of four plaintiffs challenging President Obama’s eligibility for placement on the Democratic ballot in Georgia. The President and his counsel were subpoenaed to appear in court to defend against these challenges, but the President’s attorney issued a nice letter to the judge stating that the Court had no business or jurisdiction even hearing the case and therefore the defense would not be in attendance.

So Taitz and her fellow attorneys presented their best arguments without challenge from the defense, and requested a summary judgment on the merits.

And the Court’s judgment: the plaintiffs have no case and no credible evidence, and there is no law to support their claims. Judgment for the defendant, represented only by an empty table, on the merits. Or in this case, utter lack thereof.

Let him [Romney] make this challenge: “I’ll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and the copy of his admission records to show whether he got any loans as a foreign student. When he releases that, talk to me about my tax returns.”

A foreign student? For all his supposed good ol’ boy charm and much-touted Christian values, Huckabee is just another run-of-the-mill, right-wing, lying jackass spewing the same birther-crap that’s been refuted time and time again.

And what exactly does the President’s college transcripts have to do with Romney releasing his tax returns? Nothing.

Bill Maher had a great comment last night about how Romney and his cohorts on the right have created a fictional person to do battle with. They refer to this opponent as Barack Obama but, in truth, bears no resemblance to the actual person. Their President Obama is a Marxist who cannot put two thoughts together without the help of a teleprompter. Their Obama is a tax-raising, money-spending, freedom-hating, Constitution-abusing, power-hungry simpleton who goes around the world apologizing for the U.S.

Any resemblance between the right’s Obama and the one who sits in the White House is nonexistent.

And the further to the right one goes on the political spectrum, the more bizarre the accusations. Obama is then attributed with siding with the terrorists, is of the Muslim religion and in all likelihood was born in Kenya. Hello, Orly Taitz and Mike Huckabee.

The right has gone completely mad. There’s no other rational explanation.

A group of New Hampshire lawmakers asked the state attorney general’s office Tuesday to investigate whether President Barack Obama meets the eligibility requirements to appear on the state’s ballot, after their previous attempt to remove his name from the ballot was rejected in November.

Republican state Reps. Laurence Rappaport and Carol and Lucien Vita, say that Obama is not a natural-born citizen because his father was Kenyan. “This is not a birther issue, not a consideration of where Mr. Obama was born,” Rappaport said, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. “Our concern is only if he is a natural-born citizen.”

The Congressional Research Service wrote in 2011, “There is no provision in the Constitution and no controlling American case law to support a contention that the citizenship of one’s parents governs the eligibility of a native born U.S. citizen to be president.”

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961. The White House released the president’s long-form birth certificate in April after his campaign released a scanned copy. Some, however, refuse to believe the veracity of the document.

The attorney general’s office doesn’t plan to respond. “There’s no request in it,” said Associate Attorney General Richard Head, according to the Concord Monitor. “I honestly can’t figure it out.”

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said it showed how “crazy town” has taken over the statehouse.

The New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission rejected an effort in November led by the group’s attorney, “birther queen” Orly Taitz, to remove Obama’s name from the ballot. After the commission unanimously rejected the effort, members in the crowd shouted “Traitors!” and “Shame on you!”

Assistant Attorney General Matt Mavrogeorge and Assistant Secretary of State Karen Ladd locked themselves in an office and called authorities because they feared for their safety, saying that crowd members were banging at the door and yelling. The state attorney general has asked state police to investigate the incident.

The birther wars continue. Orly Taitz, birther queen of California, personally filed a complaint in New Hampshire on Saturday that challenged President Obama’s U.S. citizenship and argued for his removal from the state’s ballot,reports the Concord Monitor.

New Hampshire’s electoral governing body, the Ballot Law Commission, turned down the complaint in a public hearing via 5-0 vote. It got pretty ugly shortly thereafter.

“Traitors!” screamed the members of the attending public. “Treason!”

“You have no decency! You have no honesty! You’re committing treason!”

The group of birthers, which included several New Hampshire state representatives, erupted after the decision, shouting at the commission attorneys as they tried to exit the hearing room. Another state representative apparently suggested committee members should cover their face with a mask if they ever found themselves in his district.

In her own report posted here, Orly Taitz assailed the commission as corrupt, citing as evidence the fact that all its members were Democrats.

“The level of corruption was unbelievable,” Taitz said. “We found out that all five members of the committee are Democrats. As I was presenting all of the evidence, people were listening and getting more and more angry.”

If indeed all members of the commission were Democrats, New Hampshire would have a major legal problem. Except Brad Cook, the chair of the commission, is a prominent Republican.